New centre will come at huge cost for villagers

The Broughshane community will have to match the £1m being footed by Ballymena Council if they are to secure much needed new community facilities in the village.

Council have committed £1,000,000 in their 2014-15 Capital programme to replace the community centre with the remaining match funding being sought by Broughshane & District Community Association.

A final concept design for the centre has been agreed and last week Council voted at committee level to proceed to Phase Two and apply for planning permission on the proposal of Braid Alderman, Sam Hanna.

Seconding him, Cllr Beth Clyde said: “This is a much needed facility for Broughshane and hopefully funding will be found. I am sure it will, they usually find it somewhere.”

It was emphasised by a Council officer that the project was “dependent on substantive funds from the community” of “slightly less than £1m” and that in the event that match funding could not be identified “then it will have to be a scaled back project”.